What’s the Window Into your Soul?

Whenever I want to know how my mom is doing, I take a trek back to her garden and have a look.

One of my longtime family friends was touring my mom’s garden and it wasn’t long before she was laughing and admiring the interesting things mixed in with her vegetable garden. There were all kinds of home made contraptions to fixture vines and/or scare away birds. She thinks nothing of planting a thing of beauty such as a tea rose next to her cucumber plants. There are annuals mixed with dill weed and chives.

My very perceptive friend who’s known my mom for 1/2 her life astutely observed that looking at Babci’s garden was like looking directly into her soul.

The garden was jammed with variety. It’s practical and it’s mostly weed free. It’s thrifty and slightly disorganized, but productive nonetheless. It is generous and always produces enough to feed whole neighborhood and all our friends. It’s a little quirky but always homey. It gets weeds and is dry as a bone when she isn’t feeling well. Yup, it’s definitely a window into her soul.

Is there an external thing that you do that defines who you are? Do you think there’s a window that people use to see into your soul? Is it your blog, your business, your cooking, or the way you care for animals or children?

I think it’s a toss up between my cooking and my home. I’m always trying to learn new things to better myself. At home, there’s always at least one room torn apart somewhere that is getting “improved.” I’m sure on some level it’s not healthy. I’m trying harder to be able to do things like sit on the patio and enjoy a nice day without having the urge the pull the weeds from between the bricks.